The Arkansaw traveler., 1887-08-27

The canvass bellied and collapsed, caught full again, and jerked away from the yards in streaming tatters, with roar like broadside of heavy guns. The helm was useless, for the ship was pressed down upon the wa ter and held motionless, except for a quiver like that seen in a frightened horse, caused by the springing and bending of her pliant spars. Her lee yard-arms were buried in the water, and the crew, finding it im- possible to stay upon the almost per- pendicular deck, had crawled over the weather -bulwarks to tho outside of the ship, where they clung to the channels.
 Captain White worked his way along to one of the cabin air-ports, and smashing it in with his boot, called to his wife,
 "We are knocked down, Mary {! Reach up your hands. You are small enough to be pulled through the win dow"
 "Never mind me, John! Look to your ship '" she answered.
 "But if the sea gets up we shall founder"
 "Look to your ship, John! I can come when I get the log book and chronometer. Look to your ship"
 He turned, and motioning to the crew to follow, crawled forward to the forecastle. By working half under water, they succeeded in letting go the lee anchor, and the chain, having no stopper but spun-yarn flashing, ran out to the bitter end, and hung from the bows straight up and down in the water, one hundred and twenty fathoms long.
 The effect was immediate. Pressed by the squall, the ship swung round, as if pivited on the chain, and when the under side of the spars and rem nants of the sails caught The gale, she righted slowly to an even keel, and lay head to wind, the torn canvass and broken spars aloft, slatting and hang ing.
 It was just in time, for the first violence of the storm, which had kept the water flat, was now abated, and the waves began to rise rapidly. They came with rush that showed force enough to have soon wrenched off the matches and sunk the ship, had she remained upon her beam ends.
 When a semblance of order was re- stored aloft, and the vessel placed un- der command again, the captain went below to tell his wife that all danger was passed. In few moments his excited voice was heard calling :-
 "Send the carpenter aftp'
 "Chips" obeyed the summons; and when he entered the cabin, was aston- ished to find the captains wife damned by heavy chest against splintered lee bulkhead and half covered with broken crockery from the shelves of the stewards locker.
 When the ship went over she had jumped from her bed to run on deck, but the chest broke away from its lashings on the weather side, and slid- ing across the floor, knocked her down and half through the thin pine paling, holding her there, bruised, bleeding, and unable to move.
 She knew if her husband left the deck to come to her assistance the few moments in which he might right the ship would be lost. When he called through the broken port she said nothing of her situation, feeling sure that if advised of it his first thoughts would be for her. She purposely misled him by her feigned selicitude for the safety of the log book, and, forgetting her own danger, admon- ished him to look to his ship.
 If the vessel had gone down she would have been drowned like help less animal in trap; but she ran the risk, in order that the crew on deck might not be diverted from their efforts to save the ship. With this end in view, she made no outcry when the heaving of the ship moved the chest back and forth, grinding her against the sharp splinters.
 She had fainted from pain when the captain found her. Part of the bulk head had to be cut away to release her without further laceration from the ragged edges of the woodwork.
 When the carpenter went forward, he told what he had seen in the cabin; and the man who had been at the wheel related the conversation that had passed between the captain and his wife through the window
 The crew were impressed. Sailors are especially quick to recognize the true womanhood, and are outspoken admirers of that high moral courage which often nerves delicate ladies, in times of great danger, to a heroism seldom equaled by the sterner sex.
 After breakfast, the next Sunday morning, Mrs. White appeared on deck for the first time since the squall She was seated in an easy chair on the quarter deck, her arm in sling, and